Choose YOU This Year

“Maybe you need to stop trying to be good at the hundred things that do not light up your soul, and finally choose the one that does - the one that asks you to risk, to lay your heart bare, to try again, even though you are scared.” 

—Brianna Wiest

It’s a new year and it is laying in front of us full of potential.  Like most of you, I have plans.  Big plans.  The same important plans I have had for several years. Yet they are still sitting in “planning.”  It isn’t that I haven’t done anything at all in years past.  I have done a hundred things or more that are noteworthy, accomplished, ordinary, trivial, wasteful.  I have filled up my time and held myself accountable.  Have those plans lit up my soul?  Some.  Yet the “big” things, the things I KNOW would let me follow my passion, they remain on the back burner. 

For several years, I have talked about writing a book.  I have hired two book writing coaches.  I have researched and manipulated the content.  I’ve taken writing classes and joined writing groups.  I have learned how to market my book and dreamed about what it would look like to have a complete manuscript in my hands. Thought of and dismissed at least 50 different titles.  Talked about it to family and friends.  Yet, I have not one page written.  I have been “working” on it, but busy is not productive.  Dreaming is not doing. 

I am a bit baffled by human beings.  We can be so passionate about our dreams, yet all too often, we let them lie in dormancy.  Hoping one day we will find the magic ingredient that will bring them to life.  We will meet the right person, finally have all the information, make the time.  Hope is a necessary component but hope alone is just hope.  As my good friend Carol reminds me, it is action that precedes motivation, not the other way round. 

What prevents us from acting?  Good old everyday fear.  Fear that we will be mocked or ridiculed, that we don’t know what we are talking about, that we will face social or financial ruin if we chase our dream.  Fear of the unknown.  Yet, I would ask, what is known?  In my entire life, not one day has gone the way I expected or planned for it to go when I woke up in the morning.  Sure, there may not have been any major surprises, but no two days are alike and even with the best laid plans, days are constantly changing.  NOTHING is truly known.  We cannot predict what any day will hold no matter how much we plan.  Nor can we predict what other people will think or say.  The only way we will ever know if our dream is worth exploring is by exploring it.

Thomas Edison said, about the invention of the lightbulb, “I have not failed.  I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”  James Dyson created 5,126 prototypes and spent 15 years trying to invent his vacuum.  Wilbur and Orville Wright suffered hundreds of crashes before they discovered that their biggest failure wasn’t the crashes, it was that they had incorrect data.  Once they questioned the accepted aerodynamics of the day, everything changed.   Bell was trying to improve the telegraph, not invent the telephone.  His breakthrough came while failing at something else. 

What do all these entrepreneurs and dreamers have in common?  They stopped judging their dream, or letting another judge it for them, and got curious about it.  They dug into the nitty gritty and persisted, taking in one day at a time and never stopped asking, “What if?”  Where would we all be if these and many other creative souls decided to live in fear. 

What is the cost of not following your dream?  I suppose if you never share it and no one knows of it, the world isn’t missing out.  But the world would be a very different place right now without lightbulbs, planes and telephones.  I believe the bigger cost is not what you do not bring forth, but the invisible yet very real toll it takes on your heart.  On not believing in ourselves.  Not trusting that what we dream about matters.  Even if it matters to no one else and does not change the world in any material way, it matters to you.  And you are the most important person.  Or you should be. 

The above quote is from Brianna Wiest’s The Pivot Year.  The back of the book states, “This is the year you change your life.”  This year I want that to REALLY be true.  This year, I want to set my fear and self-doubt aside and finally step into my passion.  I don’t know if my words will change a thing and maybe I am just so sick of the words rolling around in my head, it is self-salvation to put them on paper.  No matter the reason, I love writing.  Even if it is never published, I WILL write a book this year.  Even stating that makes me cringe.  I am now making myself accountable to all of you.  What if I fail?  What if I never try?

I know I am not alone.  I know you have dreams that have been quietly waiting for their voice to be heard.  Waiting for the smallest crack to open so they can whisper in your ear that you are worth the effort.  That your passions matter.  That you matter.  I invite you all to come on this journey with me.  I would love the company - angst and all.  We matter.  Our ideas matter.  Let’s all give ourselves permission to bloom. 

Sara Blakely, the creator of Spanx (and where would we be without Spanx) states, “Failure is not the outcome - failure is not trying.”  Let’s get curious about what is ahead.  And then get out of our own heads.  I am SO looking forward to this year. 

Much love,

Lisa

P.S. – If you are so inclined, I would love to hear what your dream is.  Please bravely reply to this email and let me know.  We can live in angst together and then celebrate wildly when we achieve our dreams together. ❤️

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Lisa Hamil is a founding member and host for The SOS Collective, an online international women’s recovery and support group.  However, this blog and any classes or coaching offered by Lisa Hamil LLC are separate from and not affiliated in any way with The SOS Collective.